JAY — Lisbon High School field hockey coach Julie Wescott was far from disappointed after her Greyhounds, the defending Class C state champions, lost to the hottest team in the Mountain Valley Conference, Spruce Mountain, 2-0 on Tuesday.

“It is always a good game when we play them, a good even match, and I felt at any time this game could have gone either way, it just came down to who got the first goal,” said Wescott, whose Greyhounds are 7-2-1 and host Telstar on Friday. “I think we anticipated well today, but in the second half Spruce Mountain anticipated better. They played very well.

“It would be one thing if we came out, played bad and lost. We didn’t play bad, far from it, and I believe that we grew a lot from this. We will go into practice and tweak things that we do well and grow from this.”

After a high-paced and scoreless first half, the 9-0-1 Phoenix received a goal each from Kayla Meserve and Randi Duguay to pull out the win, Spruce Mountain’s ninth straight victory since a season-opening 1-1 deadlock at Lisbon in early September. The Phoenix are currently in second place in Western Maine Class B behind York.

“They are always great competition for us, with the matchup featuring two wins, two losses and one tie since we became Spruce Mountain,” said Phoenix co-coach Julia Parker, whose Phoenix visit Oak Hill on Friday. “This win shows that they can step it up and run with a good team. Winthrop was a tough game (a 3-1 Spruce Mountain win), but the competition we saw today will help us look toward the playoffs, the Class B playoffs. They played with Lisbon and stayed right with them.”

The Greyhounds held a 5-3 shot advantage in the first half, but the Phoenix turned the tide in the second frame, outshooting Lisbon 7-2. The key for Spruce Mountain was a solid defensive effort, as the Greyhounds rarely had room to run their offensive sets.

“They had good block tackles, and they are just a clean team and really talented,” Lisbon forward Hanna Jordan said. “They are a great team, and we are not disappointed. People do expect a lot from us, being the defending champion. My compliments to Spruce Mountain. They play clean and I like a lot of their girls.”

“We have been working really hard in practice, and when we play to our highest levels, our sticks are like magnets,” said Spruce Mountain defender Emily Taylor, who along with teammates Katelyn Gervais and Liz Chretian bottled up the Greyhounds, with goaltender Kasey Richards turning aside seven shots for the shutout. “Lisbon is still the toughest team that we play, and we prepared really hard for this game. This tells us that our hard work in practice has paid off, and if we keep playing like we are playing, good things are going to happen.”

“Second half, we wanted to explode, get some scores and play tough defensively,” Parker said. “Emily Taylor has been big for us, running the center of the field. She worked hard during the offseason to have a great senior year and it has definitely paid off.”

Important goal

Lisbon began the game well, outshooting Spruce Mountain 4-0 over the first 20 minutes. The Greyhounds’ best chance came with 11 minutes remaining in the first half as Arianna Kahler and Sarah Craig put two shots on Richards, with the netminder doing the splits to keep the contest scoreless.

The Phoenix found a little bit of rhythm after Patti Ryan slipped a shot through the solid Lisbon defense of Ali Bubar, Nichole Jones, Jenn Smith, Mariah Breton, Courtney Lawrence and Alexis Rider and onto keeper Stevie Charest, who made the save. Two more shots by the Phoenix were also turned aside, while Richards made a key save on a chance by Jordan as the teams went to half even.

The game-winning goal came on a double touch in front of Charest. Brooke Cushing sent the ball toward the Lisbon cage, with Nicole Hamblin redirecting a pass to Meserve, who was left unmarked and beat Charest to the near post for a 1-0 lead with 21:59 remaining.

“I can’t take anything away from their first goal. She was open and put it in during one of our few defensive breakdowns,” Wescott said. “Our goal was to go out and match the second half, and when you give it your all in the first half, you tire out. That seemed to happen to us a little in the second half.”

The Greyhounds had a chance six minutes later as Molly Nicholson unleashed a hard shot from 10 feet away, with Richards making the save.

But, that was about it for Lisbon’s offense, and the Phoenix put the game away when Duguay cleaned up her own rebound for a 2-0 lead with 14:16 left.

Charest had eight stops in Lisbon’s cage. The Phoenix finished with a 6-2 edge in penalty corners.

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